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296 Although English farmers are so stoutly conservative in this respect, they show the greatest leaning toward the masses; and they seemingly endeavour to make the masses as solid and as heavy as possible. They have the best roads and the heaviest wagons in the world. You may frequently see in New England a two-story frame house drawn up and down hills on four wheels, not a whit more heavy and solid than those of the average one-horse carts of the English farmer. As for one of the great four-wheeled wagons used here, thilled instead of poled, an American farmer would hardly think of dragging it up a hill empty with a single horse. But it is not so much in the solidity and weight of their carts and wagons that this peculiar economy of tractor forces, inherited and perpetuated here, may be seen most strikingly illustrated. It is in their application to the masses to be moved. Here before us was an example of the system. I asked the driver to let his three magnificent gray horses straighten their trace chains. I then paced the distance from the collar of the leader to the forward axle of the wagon, and found it a little over two rods! Nearly half the length of one horse was lost in the connexion between them. Indeed, as nearly as I could measure it with my walking-stick, it was full six feet between a perpendicular line from the hip of one horse to the